All Things Considered

Commonly referred to as "ATC" and a staple for afternoon commutes, NPR's nationally syndicated afternoon news magazine brings you closer to home with the presence of WAMU's local host.

Since May 3, 1971 All Things Considered has been produced every day from NPR's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Featuring a mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features, "ATC" produces 2 hours of fresh content every day for hundreds of public radio stations around the United States.

Elliott Francis

Local Host, All Things Considered

Francis has worked alongside some of the most influential media executives in the U.S. during his 25 years as a news anchor, including FOX News President and Chairman Roger Ailes, former CNN Executive Vice President Ed Turner, and the founder and former CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, John H. Johnson. In 2002, shortly after joining the ABC news affiliate in Washington DC (WJLA-TV) as the morning co-anchor, Francis was thrust into the rigors of live, non-stop coverage of the DC sniper shootings and investigation, sometimes speaking 8-9 hours unscripted. A skilled interviewer, Francis once convinced singer John Denver to go "on-camera" with details of his upcoming DUI trial.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Most of the death and mayhem that occurs every day in Pakistan goes unreported in the West. You have to be here, to get a sense of exactly how turbulent and unstable this country is. Nawaz Sharif has just assumed power on a promise to restore calm and order.

A wholesale grocer has brought a lawsuit against the United Potato Growers of America claiming they are running an illegal price-fixing cartel. According to the lawsuit the UPGA has gone so far as to employ aerial surveillance to ensure its members are abiding by agreements to reduce the potato supply. Robert Siegel speaks with Associated Press reporter John Miller in Boise, Idaho about the case.

Northern Ireland is host to this year's G-8 summit and is using the international attention to showcase local vistas, golf courses and how far the area has come since the days of brutal political violence. Melissa Block speaks with Peter Shirlow of Queen's University in Belfast about the changes he's seen and where Northern Ireland is today.

The anti-government protests taking place across Turkey have not bypassed Antakya, down near the Syrian border. Nightly marches and demonstrations take place in the majority Alawite part of the city, but the protesters are a mix of minority Alawites and majority Sunni Muslims. In addition to the common complaints that Prime Minister Erdogan is growing more autocratic, some are convinced that the government's policies are pulling Turkey into the Syrian crisis and they fear more violence like the bomb attacks that killed at least 51 people in a border town last month.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down Arizona's requirement that prospective voters provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. But some experts are concerned that the court may have inserted a few "poison pills" in its opinion that would damage voting rights protections down the road.

Listener Rachel Sumner of Ithaca, N.Y., recounts the story of her bat-infested trip to Ecuador for our series on vacation horror stories. A bat in her hotel room would keep returning no matter how many times she captured it and took it out. She had to get rabies shots and now has no sympathy for bats.

Summer is almost here — and in California that means it's the season to worry about rolling blackouts. There's even more cause for concern this year. The San Onofre nuclear power plant is shutting down for good. It's been off-line for more than a year after a pipe was found leaking radioactive steam. When fully operational, San Onofre produced power for more than a million homes.

Every time you think you got a handle on this year's NBA Finals, you realize, you have no idea what's going to happen next. Case in point: Before last night's game five against the Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili was slumping and supposedly washed up. Instead he put on a vintage performance and led the Spurs to a ten-point victory over the defending champs.

Melissa Block talks with Vali Nasr about Iran's president-elect, Hassan Rowhani. Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, has closely followed Rowhani's career. In this week's Foreign Policy he calls the election outcome a "game-changer" for U.S.-Iran relations.

The Supreme Court sided with government regulators in an important case involving the pharmaceutical industry and patent law. At issue were contracts between "brand-name" pharmaceutical companies and "generic" producers in which the brand-name company paid the generic not to compete. The court said the Federal Trade Commission could challenge such contracts.

There was a time — a time long, long ago — when MySpace dominated the teen social-media world. Not anymore. NPR's Sami Yenigun looks at how teenagers use various social platforms in today's increasingly segmented online universe.

As part of NPR's series marking 50 years since the summer of 1963 — a formative time in American politics and culture — we turn to Jackson, Miss. There the story of a summer youth workshop meant to bring the Civil Rights Movement out of the past and into the 21st Century unfolds.

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